Youth
“I’m frightened of young people.”
“Why?”
“They’re brutes. Were we ever so bad?”
“Worse, likely.”
“Nah. We never had their access to information; we never had that same ego-driven madness to raise our notoriety. Did we?”
“We did. I believe our parents’ generation was far more astounded than you are at the insanity of the youth.”
“Unfortunately, that does little to alleviate my anxiety.”
“Then let me put your mind at ease: you’ve nothing to fear from the kids. They’ve got just enough rope to hang themselves with and they’ve happily done so for generations. The information age has only made it easier; they have all the tools of ideological revolution but none of the physical wherewithal to go rip up some paving stones and do anything about it. To an almost universal degree here in the West we’ve managed to spay and neuter every one of them, to the point where now all they do is mindlessly engage in pointless debate on the internet. The internet! It’s marvelous, I tell you. You see, our advantage is that we grew up through the introduction of ‘virtual reality’, we understood what the medium was and were able to maintain perspective. Now these youngsters today are born into it, not knowing anything else. They’re the softest of maggots. Just make sure you’re not walking down any dark streets on a weekend evening. Some of the less distracted among them are still all too happy to lay hands on us.”
First draft: 150220
Published: 230916